Re: [tdwg-content] New Darwin Core terms proposed relating to material samples

Basically, we’ve been running with the idea of an “Individual” class – as originally proposed by Steve and discussed at some length on this list a while ago. This has been documented for DSW:

https://code.google.com/p/darwin-sw/wiki/ClassIndividual

We define an “Individual” as the physical “something” that underpins an Occurrence. In the case of organisms, this can be a group (herd, school, flock, etc.), specimen (either a single specimen, or a lot of multiple specimens), or any sort of derivative of a specimen (part, tissue sample, dna extraction, etc.). It corresponds to the intended meaning of

I disagree with using "Individual" for sets of objects. It is surprising, and lacking any clear definition when to stop, that means a taxon is an individual, a collection is an individual, etc.